Reported By:
| Edited By: Rakesh Bhatnagar |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 17, 2018, 02:28 AM IST
A Supreme Court judge, B S Chauhan, withdrew from the bench when an appeal filed by the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) challenging the high court on the acquisition of land for its power plant in Dadri came up for hearing on Thursday.
Chauhan, who is from the Allahabad High Court, said at the outset he wouldn’t like to hear the appeal as he had heard it while in the HC a few years ago.
Chief justice K G Balakrishnan, who headed the bench, adjourned the hearing till January 18.
“It would not be proper for me to hear the matter,” Chauhan said, declining the plea of parties that they have no objection about his being a part of the bench.
In its appeal, ADAG’s Reliance Power (RPL) questioned the
legality of HC’s December 5, 2009, judgment that scrapped the Uttar Pradesh government’s notification for using emergency powers to acquire land for the company’s 8,000 mw Dadri power project.
HC had said that the state government had side-stepped a provision inviting objections from land owners.
RPL said HC should not have entertained the farmer’s petitions on the grounds of delay in filing them.
It said the company had complied with the provisions of the Land Acquisition law and the project was in public interest. About 2,500 acres of land were acquired by the state government from the farmers for the project.
HC passed the judgment while disposing of several petitions filed by aggrieved farmers challenging acquisition of the land in 2004, when the Samajwadi Party was in power in the state.
Former prime minister late V P Singh had supported the farmers’ cause.
